


I surrender, dear

by UbiquitousMixie



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, Sibling Incest, Sister/Sister Incest, Spellcest, Spellcest Prompt Challenge, featuring a wee bit of Vinegar Tom because we Stan a legend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 19:11:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20533127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UbiquitousMixie/pseuds/UbiquitousMixie
Summary: They played the game of stay away.





	I surrender, dear

**Author's Note:**

> I FINALLY finished my fic for the August Spellcest Challenge. Five days late isn't too bad, right?  
This is based on the song "I Surrender, Dear" by Julie London, so pop on over to Spotify and give it a listen.  
(Oh, and you should totally picture Cate Blanchett when you meet Winnie.)  
Comments are LOVE.

The sisters sit in quiet contemplation. 

Elder sister chain smokes with one hand and taps her fingers against the tabletop in an effort to extinguish her nerves with the other. 

Younger sister rolls the sleeve of her cardigan between thumb and forefinger with one hand and wipes her other clammy palm against the apron covering her lap. 

They’ve been looking everywhere around the comfortable familiarity of the kitchen, everywhere but at each other. 

The witching hour strikes. The broken cuckoo clock in the hall chimes relentlessly. The faucet drips. Vinegar Tom sees all from his comfortable basket. 

Their eyes meet. 

-

Hilda should have known, that first time, that Zelda would say no. She had become accustomed to the word after languishing in the warm embrace of Zelda’s _yes_. Hilda ached for the early gray dawns when Zelda would give her anything, allow her everything, with a simple whispered yes, and Hilda had given her sister everything in return.

She doesn’t know what inspired the change, only that it had come, and it had hurt. So many pretty promises replaced by the cold, bitter slash of _no._

So many nights spent in the dirt. 

But she hadn’t been dead that night, the night of her dark baptism. She had been very much alive under that blood moon, so feminine and lush and _ripe_ beneath her pale ivory slip. So many had wanted her, had tempted her with promises of pleasures untold and bliss unmatched. 

There was only one person that Hilda sought that night. 

She’d followed the pounding of the drums, had easily spotted her sister dancing nude and resplendent amongst the others. 

Zelda had felt her gaze, had come to the tree line where Hilda stood, had followed the freshly matured witch until they were ensconced in near-darkness amongst the whispering trees. 

“Have you come for advice, little one?” Zelda’s eyes flashed, her breath sweet with wine. 

“No.” She had stepped closer, had brushed against those pale, perfect breasts. 

Zelda’s breath had stuttered, had ceased entirely when Hilda’s fingers threaded through wild copper hair. “Hildie…”

“I already know what I want, sister.” 

Zelda allowed their lips to touch for only a moment before she shoved her younger sister away. “No,” she spat. “You don’t know anything, Hildegard.” 

But she did know. She could see so much, could see straight through to the truth locked in her sister’s heart, raw and lusty and forbidden.

She’d have preferred the pit. 

-

It was no wonder that Hilda would answer in kind, thirty-six years later. 

Coven gatherings had been, from Hilda’s earliest memories, mere excuses to push back against the heavy puritanical cloud that had settled over Massachusetts. Convention and decorum were often checked at the door with hats and shawls right along with most inhibitions. 

Hilda preferred to observe and, once she fulfilled her duty of making a brief appearance, promptly leave. 

She hadn’t been sure why she lingered that night. It had been too hot and she’d had too much to drink and Zelda had been allowing any passing tongue down her throat, which had only made Hilda drink more. 

By the time Hilda had stumbled down the hall, tugging at the too-high collar of her too-warm dress, she’d been drunk and desperate to leave the oppressive crush of the party behind her. 

She hadn’t expected Zelda to catch her by the hand in the entrance hall, nor had she expected Zelda to thread their fingers together and draw her into the coat room. 

“Leave,” Zelda had barked at a couple of warlocks necking amongst the furs. 

“Zelds, what are you --” Hilda had asked once they were alone, the door firmly shut behind them. Older sister had draped herself against that door, had tugged on Hilda’s hand until she’d been pulled flush against her. 

Hilda would never forget the sounds they both made to feel their bodies pressed so intimately together. 

Zelda released Hilda’s hand, cupped her palms against Hilda’s flushed cheeks. Her thumbs had passed lazily against Hilda’s lips, and it had taken every ounce of resolve for Hilda to refrain from sucking her sister’s thumb into her mouth. 

“My dear, sweet sister,” Zelda had whispered, slotting her thigh between Hilda’s unsteady legs. They’d both groaned at the contact, and Hilda’s traitorous hips had chased the sensation pounding between her thighs. “Don’t you feel it in the air, Hildie? Don’t you feel it all around us?” 

Their foreheads touched, and Hilda would never forget the sickly-sweet smell of wine and ashy smoke on her sister’s breath. She’d wanted so badly to lean forward, to claim what she wanted, but then she’d remembered that she’d been asked a question. “Feel what?” 

She’d felt Zelda’s heart pounding. Had felt her own sweaty palms balled into fists at her sides, afraid that if she pressed them to her sister’s waist that she’d never let go. Had felt her sister’s mental defenses lowering just enough to catch a glimpse of the shocking, sultry images in Zelda’s mind. 

It had made Hilda feel so breathless to see her own thoughts mirrored. 

“Magic,” Zelda had whispered, brushing her mouth against Hilda’s. “I was so, so wrong.” Older sister’s sharp teeth had nipped at Hilda’s lower lip as she released the hold on her face in favor of grabbing at round hips. “I should never have said no to you that night.” 

“You’re only saying this because you’re drunk,” Hilda snapped. 

“That makes it no less true,” Zelda had replied. 

“I -- I don’t want it like that.” Hilda took a painful step back. “I deserve to be more than just a drunken roll in the hay to you.” 

Zelda’s eyes had flashed, had darkened until the blue-green was nearly black. She’d never been particularly good at communication, but Hilda knew _exactly_ how her sister felt about the accusation when she’d woken in the moist, cold ground the next morning. 

-

In 1926, the sisters made a mutual decision. 

The backdrop had been ideal for decadence, for intimacy, for love. 

Hilda had been swept away by the glittering opulence of the _Dark Lady_, the very lavish yacht upon which the east coast coven converged once or twice a year in Long Island. Edward had even come, had been practicing being in the public eye as he ascended in the Church of Night. He had been scarce that night, no doubt locked in some study with other warlocks. Zelda had spent most of her night on the foredeck, where the music echoed across the water and the laughter rang throughout the night. 

Hilda preferred it at the back of the boat, where it was quieter but no less extravagant. She’d been so taken by Zelda with her long, glorious mane of rose gold hair glamoured into a chin length bob that she’d intentionally sequestered herself elsewhere.

Hilda had also been taken with a tall, slinky blonde with incredible cheekbones who had, in turn, taken quite a liking to Hilda. She’d let the woman — Winnie, she called herself — ply her with champagne and tempt her with teasing caresses. She’d flirted with Hilda all night as she made her rounds, coming and going like the breeze but each time returning to Hilda’s more subdued crowd, pressing enticing kisses against her wrist and cheek and ear. 

It had been a delightful distraction until she’d met Zelda inside at the bar. 

Zelda, with her pale cheeks flushed, pressed herself too closely to Hilda, fingered the beads at her shoulder in such a way that Hilda had shuddered despite the cloying warmth of the inner cabin. It had driven her nearly mad with want, had very nearly made her toss her well-guarded resolve over the port side of the damned boat and tug Zelda into an unused cabin. 

But she had refrained. It had been painful. 

Zelda caught the attention of a waiter as he passed, carrying a tray of fizzling champagne flutes. “Take these to Fred, darling, will you?” When her attention returned to her sister, her grin had been downright wicked. “You should join us, siser. You may find yourself a playmate of your very own.” Zelda’s eyes settled on the base of Hilda’s throat, on the purple bruise raised by Winnie’s equally wicked mouth. “Or have you already found one?” 

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” 

“I would, in fact.” 

The glance exchanged between the sisters was pregnant with possibility, with unspoken want, but the moment was broken by a peel of raucous laughter on the bow. 

They did not meet again until the yacht had docked. Witches and warlocks scattered into the night, but Hilda allowed herself to be guided to the deserted foredeck by Winnie’s cold but reassuring hand, had allowed herself to be tugged down onto a pile of cushions and kissed senseless. 

“My sister, Fred? Really?” 

Hilda had blinked in surprise. “Wha -- but, I thought --” 

Winnie leaned back against the cushions, crossing her long legs slowly, ensuring that each sister was watching. “I swear to Satan that I had no idea this delicious little crumpet was your sister.” 

Hilda had fully known that Winnie was Winifred Cox, _the_ Dark Lady herself. Hilda had been fully aware when she’d come upon the socialite herself in an empty cabin who she was and hadn’t given half a damn, but it had simply never occurred to her that Zelda’s _Fred_ could be the very same witch. 

“I’m very, very interested in sisters, as it happens,” Winnie had drawled, tugging on Zelda’s arm until she was seated beside her. She leaned in, pressed a kiss to Zelda’s shoulder and then, a moment later, to Hilda’s. “How ‘bout I have the captain take the three of us back out so we can fuck until sunrise?”

Another time, another life, another game and the outcome might have been different. 

Hilda’s answer had been ready on her tongue; the decision had been easy for her, all things considered. 

It had been Zelda to speak the words. 

“When it comes to my sister, Fred, I’m afraid I’m not willing to share.”

-

They very nearly gave in, very nearly decided that staying apart wasn’t worth the cost. The love unshared, unspent, ungiven had grown too large to hold in, had nearly festered. 

They could have grown something beautiful.

And then Edward and Diana had died. 

The choice had been made for them.

-

Parenting an orphaned niece reduced all choices to the most basic: plums versus applesauce, cloth diapers versus disposable, snuggling into Hilda’s bed versus Zelda’s. 

There had been a certain measure of predictability in those early days, awash with gripping grief and sleepless nights. If one sister sat up with a fussy Sabrina, they both did. It had not been uncommon to find the sisters Spellman singing Bowie songs to a whimpering Sabrina at two in the morning, nor was it uncommon for one sister to happen upon the other, asleep where she sat. 

That had been how Hilda found Zelda one rainy afternoon: feet propped on ottoman, book propped on lap, baby propped on chest, Zelda fast asleep. The quiet domesticity beckoned its siren song to Hilda. 

She moved quietly. Vinegar Tom watched without seeing as Hilda gently lifted the book from her sister’s lap, setting it aside on the table. There was just enough room on the sofa to wiggle her way in. Carefully, Hilda lifted her sister’s reading glasses from her nose and turned to set them on the table. 

When she turned back, Zelda’s blue-green eyes were watching. 

Hilda said nothing, simply leaned in and pressed a kiss to the new worry lines that had appeared over the year they’d had Sabrina. Zelda sighed, turned her face just so, and kissed her back. 

Hilda expected to be doused by Zelda’s _no_ like a bucket of ice water, but it never came -- only soft, warm _yeses_ as her lips peppered chaste, soft kisses against Hilda’s own. There were no tongues, no teeth, no urgency. There was only the gentle meeting of mouths. 

“My Hildie,” Zelda had whispered. 

“My Zelds.” 

Sabrina began to cry.

-

Hilda reaches across the table, covering Zelda’s restless fingers with her own. 

“Enough,” she says, leaning forward. “I surrender, dear.”

Zelda meets her halfway. 

\---


End file.
